HL Economics

South Africa’s HDI

Economic Growth- Improvements in the economy, refering to utilizations in resources. This could mean new technology, changes in economic focus (agriculture to industrialization) ect.

Economic Development- Refers to the effects of the economy on the population improving, aka improvement in the standard of living.

Sustainable Development- Refers to the utilization of resources to meet human needs while lessening environmental impact.

The HDI is valuable because it takes into account the major factors in the standard of living such as life expectancy, education, and wealth, and gives a country and score and a rank based on this. It gives a good idea of how the countries economic development is going. However, the fact the HDI takes into account is limited. It does not take into account human rights and economic impact, so the rank can be vague or misleading. South Africa HDI rank was 121, which is pretty low. I’m not surprised, however, because of their political and human rights turmoil.